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under an hour, turned around and decelerated for the same length of time, and
finally accelerated again to match speeds with the drifting stream of rocks.
Floating at one of the side viewports, Ferrol watched as Quentin telekened a
small boulder into one of its rear feeding orifices. He d never before been
this close to a feeding space horse, and it was one hell of an impressive
sight.  You gotten a first-
order analysis on those rocks yet? he asked Kennedy.
He turned to look as Kennedy fiddled with her keyboard.  Should be just about
finished& yes, here it is. Um.
Very interesting no wonder Quentin was panting to get here. Unusually high
percentages of iron and nickel;
exceptionally high concentrations of bismuth, tellurium, thallium, and a dozen
other trace metals.
Especially right here the stuff we passed while Quentin was matching speeds
didn t register as nearly this good.
And exceptionally high concentrations of trace metals meant& Craning his neck,
Ferrol looked over at the Tampies. Even with filter masks plastered across
their faces he could still see the sudden interest there.  A
yishyar system? he suggested.
 Certainly by textbook definitions, Kennedy agreed, turning to look at the
Tampies too.  Sso-ngü?
 Yes, the Tampy murmured. His raspy voice was dry and very alien, as if
surprise or excitement had driven all attempts at human overtones from it.
Ferrol could well understand their interest; his own mind was already
simmering with the possibilities. A brand-new yishyar system more to the
point, a yishyar
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system eight hundred light-years outside of Tampy-claimed space. If the
Senator could keep the Cordonale from meekly handing it over to the aliens and
if he could figure out a way to get back to the damned place himself then
maybe
Demothi s idiot experiment might yield something useful, after all.
 Ferrol?
He blinked the grand schemes out of his mind and focused on Kennedy.  Sorry.
You said& ?
 I said I think we ve got a space horse locator program aboard, she repeated.
 A
simple one, probably: an anomalous-motion program coupled with a shape-
recognition package. You want me to get it up?
And look for any other space horses that might be feeding here?  Good idea,
he nodded.  And don t forget to tie in the recorders. Sso-ngü, let s have
Quentin boost speed a little a few kilometers an hour shouldn t affect the
feeding any, and it ll let us survey more of the belt.
 Your wishes are ours. The Tampy paused.  Ffe-rho, Quentinninni is not happy.
Something is disturbing him.
Ferrol pushed himself away from the viewport.  Something from in here? he
asked, bringing himself to a halt in front of them.
 No, Sso-ngü said. He hesitated, then removed the helmet and handed it past
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Timothy Zahn - Warhorse
Demothi to Wwis-khaa.  It is something outside, something that causes&  He
stopped again and made a gesture Ferrol had never seen before.
 Uneasiness, Wwis-khaa supplied, the word seeming to come out with
difficulty.
 Quentinninni is uneasy. Perhaps& fearful.
Something hard settled into the base of Ferrol s throat. He d seen space
horses get skittish, spooked, and stressed& but never before had he seen one
afraid. Or heard of one being afraid.
What the hell out there could scare even a baby space horse?
The lander was suddenly very quiet. Everyone else, apparently, was wondering
the same thing. And perhaps coming to the same conclusion.  All right, he
said as
Wwis-khaa handed the helmet back.  Stay on that feeling, Sso-ngü, and let me
know the minute it changes or gets any clearer. Kennedy, get that locator
going, but alternate it with the regular scan program. I don t want us to miss
something important just because it s not shaped like a space horse.
 Right, Kennedy said, and got to work. Her voice was still calm, but there
was a hardness beneath it.
They traveled for a time in silence, with questions and replies delivered in
low tones. Outside the viewports several hundred asteroids could be seen at
any given time, the nearest handful as irregular lumps, the rest as pinpoints
of reflected light from the distant sun.
Ferrol had spent more time than he cared to remember sitting around asteroid
belts exactly like this one without the slightest touch of claustrophobia; but
as the minutes dragged into hours he found the white dots on the monitor
seeming to press ever closer and more oppressively around the lander. The air
coming in through his filter mask felt to be growing ever hotter, and he found
himself continually plotting updated escape routes through the moving
boulders. A side effect of having to wear the mask for so long, he tried to
tell himself; but down deep he knew better.
And four hours after they began their search, they found the space horse.
 It doesn t seem to be moving at all, Kennedy said, gazing closely at the
readouts.
 Just drifting with the asteroids.
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Ferrol nodded, keying the enhancement program one more time. Again the fuzzy
image of the distant creature sharpened just a bit; again, the computer was
unable to resolve a section of its outline.
He wasn t sure exactly what that meant. But he knew already he didn t like it.
 Sso-
ngü, has Quentin detected the other space horse yet? he asked over his
shoulder.
 Yes. His uneasiness is increasing.
Ferrol chewed hard at his lip, uncertainty twisting at his stomach. The last
thing he wanted to do was to take the lander any closer to that thing out [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]